I pray that each day you are able to find wonderful opportunities to just sit and soak in the presence of the Lord.  As you seek His face, may those moments be multiplied, and may you daily experience the refreshment that comes from spending intimate time with your Lord.

 

Finding those moments can be difficult as we face an artillery of information and advice, questions and concerns, bombarding us throughout the  day.  We can hardly find a moment to rest, let alone a moment for intimate time with our Lord, as distractions ring from our pockets, glare at us on our desktop, captivate us in the coffee shop, and hold us hostage on the sofa.  Our cell phones, ipods, handhelds, notebooks, computers, and televisions, designed to offer greater convenience in our lives, have instead robbed us of our communion with our God.

 

As we consider the amount of information available at our fingertips, being whispered in our ears, and staring us in the eye, we must ask ourselves how much of this information is actually influencing our behavior, actions, attitudes, and the decisions we make each day?  Who is it that we are listening to?  How much of that information are we taking at face value instead of taking it to the Lord in prayer and aligning it with God's Word?

Our founding fathers recognized the importance of seeking the counsel of the Lord in His Word.  The documents that birthed this nation are a testimony to the wise counsel received from diligently studying the Word of God.  At its' birth, the leaders of our nation sought the wisdom and mind of God, and were led, by the Lord, to establish Bible societies, missionary societies, and the Sunday School movement.  The Word of God and prayer were vital elements in the everyday life of our country.  The principles of Scripture were at the center of our government from it's inception, and, as a result, a firm foundation was laid, and the blessings of God were poured out upon this nation.

 

Unfortunately, the history of America is not unlike the history of Israel, as we see this nation, once rooted and grounded in the Word of God, "exchanging their Glory for worthless idols" (Jeremiah 2:11).  Now, instead of experiencing God's blessings, we are experiencing His chastisement.  How long until He pours out the full extent of His wrath?  God, in His mercy, has given us His Spirit of counsel, so that we will walk, not as the condemned, but rather in response to our true calling as the crowned (reference 2 Timothy 4:8; 1 Peter 5:4)! 

 

The distractions of the world have caused us to lose our focus.  We have lost sight of the treasure we have been given in God's Word.  Because have not sought the Lord in His Word, as diligently as our founding fathers had, we have buried that once solid and firm foundation under a heaping mound of corruption, deception, and immorality. It's time we begin to clear the clutter and raise up that foundation to its' rightful place in our nation.  A good place to begin is in our minds.

 

The mind is the enemy's greatest battlefield as he works diligently to fill our thought life with discouragement, disallusionment, and defeat.  The Spirit of Counsel is at work countering the lies of the enemy with the Truth of the Word of God.  He desires to remind us daily to keep our focus on God's kingdom plan and to remember we have a calling to proclaim the message of salvation to the world (reference 2 Corinthians 5:20; Ephesians 6:19-20; Hebrews 10:35-39). 

 

The men and women who came as pilgrims and sojourners in this new land, came with a common goal to "propagate the gospel" and bear the light of Christ to those lost in darkness. They were simply responding to the same commission all believers have been given (reference Matthew 28:18-20).  As this day draws to a close, may we return to our roots, digging deeper and more diligently into the Word of God, and be willing to set aside the wisdom of man and, instead, seek the counsel of God.  The counsel of the world will never offer us the peace, joy, and victory that God has promised us when we seek Him in His Word (reference Matthew 6:33)!

 

Jesus promised us, "I will never leave you nor forsake you" and reminded us "...I am with you always, to the very end of the age" (Joshua 1:5b;  Matthew 28:20b) - He has fulfilled these promises in the wonderful presence of His Holy Spirit - let us praise Him for His wonderful and awesome gift!  "He who has ears to hear, let him hear" (Mark 4:9).

 

 

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